Somehow I knew Jen’s dad had just been to Disney Land. Maybe, in the cavernous cafeteria in the days prior, over pb & j, Jen had told me her dad was on a business trip there. Maybe she, and I, and the other girls had all fantasized how he was spending his time: wandering around the park alone, riding Space Mountain, drinking chocolate milkshakes, and amassing souvenirs to bring back to the family. More likely, he was holed up in a conference center in Los Angeles and picked up the pencil at a gas station before rushing to make his flight home.
In the classroom that morning our desks were situated into pods, four to a group. Jen’s and mine directly faced each other. The morning bell had just rung and little bodies were struggling to settle. Mrs. Johnson licked her fingers, counting sheets of the floppy beige paper with blue and red lines. Small hands reached into rectangular voids to pull out pencils. A boy lumbered over to the sharpener at the corner of the room by the sink. His arm turned the crank, slow and jerkily, as wood and lead ground into the metal canister. He pulled the pencil out, admired the impossibly sharp point, blew off the sawdust, and shuffled back to his desk.
With my own (already sharpened) pencil in hand, I was primed to get to work, just waiting now for the instructions. Let’s goooo, I thought, as my legs bounced impatiently under my desk. My eyes scanned the room, willing my peers to hurry up, and as they landed squarely on Jen, I felt something was notably different about her: she was giddy. With a coy smile, her bright eyes looked up at me and instantly I knew she had something good to show me.
No doubt, she had been fantasizing about this moment since last night. Since her father pulled the gift out of his own bag and placed it in her hand. I wonder if she slept, knowing how different handwriting practice would be with this new treasure. I wonder if while eating breakfast this morning, she practiced using it, feeling how the weight felt different in her hand, entirely novel.
Slowly, out of the cavity of her desk, she unveiled it.
It was long and fluorescent orange. A pencil. But different. What was that unusual shape?
As she held it upright in front of me, her body started to wiggle. As I focused on the thin piece of orange wood held in front of me, the shape slowly came into focus.
I saw that at the top, the wood deviated from its straight line and gracefully swooped around, up and down and over, to form the outline of a Mickey Mouse head. Through the negative space inside the Mickey Mouse outline, I could see Jen’s face painted with exhilaration.
There was even an eraser on the end of pencil, at the place where Mickey’s neck met itself. Of course, it was an eraser one could never actually use. But its placement was brilliant, nonetheless.
The entire creation was utterly magnificent, like nothing I had ever seen.
I don’t remember asking her if I could hold it. I don’t remember compulsively reaching my arm out and wrapping my chubby fingers around Micky’s ears. I have no memory of pulling the pencil quickly toward me in one motion.
*
But, I do remember feeling the snap.
*
Pause. Silence.
My mouth fell open in disbelief.
I looked down. Mickey Mouse was in my hand
I looked up. The rest of the pencil was still in hers.
Immediately, I shrunk into my tiny plastic chair.
With eyes shut tight, I imagined Jen’s eyes welling up as her soft whimpers became barely audible. In a moment, it was obvious, she was gently weeping.
I opened my eyes, but stayed looking down, shocked and mortified.
And then, out of nowhere, Mrs. Johnson stood over me, hands on her hips, looking wholly disappointed.
A few years ago, I asked Jen about this day. I told her how I’ve carried the guilt and shame of what I did to her pencil over thirty years ago at our miniature desks. I wanted to say, Look at how I was a bull in a china shop, even as a kiddo? Look at how I needed to slow down, even at six years old?
I ask her if she remembers her devastation, how her sweet, shy soul publicly grieved the loss of her father’s gift.
Remember how crushed you were? How your silent tears made the entire class go hushed?
“Really?” she says with a chuckle, “I don’t remember that at all.”